"Are the Napoleonic Wars Glorious?" Topic

What with all the arguing about Napoleon recently ( well, always actually) the word 'glory' has been used quite a bit. In its way this has surprised me as these days war is, it seems to me, anything but glorious.

I have always thought that the Napoleonic Wars were close to the very epitome of glory ( yes, I know all about the deaths, horrible mutilations, et al, but still and all I watch The Duellists with a rapidly beating heart during certain scenes even to this day).

I certainly wouldn't condemn anybody who thought the subject was not glorious, but am I alone in these thoughts, and if not, I'd be interested to know what makes certain wars, or parts of wars, glorious in nthe eyes of others.

No worse than many other wars such as bloody ww1 or the terrible WW2 with mass executions of civilians and the birth of the atomic age

all sides thought they were fighting for a cause that were right

Ney thought so..

Private Jones who had his arm blown off in Spain, but somehow managed to survive the subsequent infection and return to Britain only to live in poverty because he couldn't support himself adequately might not have thought so… (although I'm sure his stiff upper lip wouldn't allow him to complain).

It's all relative I guess.

TW.

Perhaps a definition of terms is in order. What do you mean by "glory?"

[all sides thought they were fighting for a cause that were right]

It was an age of mass conscription, in which men turned to increasingly desperate measures to avoid being sent to the army. By 1813 people were rioting against the draft. Desertion was epidemic in many armies. Most regimes used draconian censorship and severe punishment to squash any criticism or questioning of the war effort.

So I have to assume that for 95% of the participants, "glory" was the furthest thing from their minds, and most of them couldn't give a damn about the "cause." They just wanted to get home in one piece, as soon as possible.

On the other hand, for a career officer, for whom the constant wars and high attrition rates means quick promotion and lots of chances for plunder… Yes, I can imagine that it was indeed glorious.

Western warfare, and society, and our expectations from life, have changed so much from those days that's it's difficult to assign an answer to this. probably more people THEN thought war was "glorious". It certainly seems more colorful, less mechanical, and less destructive of civilization than it does today. That doesn't necessarily make it more "glorious", only more prone to nostalgia and romanticizing. But people of yesterday lived much harder lives than they do today, generally speaking. They may have expected less. They had to be more stoic and careful. We're really quite spoiled compared to the average Napoleonic soldier or civilian. Modern American soldiers live in more comfort than yester year's princes. But they die just as ugly of edaths in combat. So what's glory? Only the Marines seem to push the ideal of old-fashioned military "glory" in their recruitment pitches, as far as I can see. And this seems increasingly anachronistic (at best) or deceitful at worst given the realities of modern conflicts. Marines aren't running around Afghanistan with swords slaying dragons and saving fair maidens.

I was thinking more on a contemporary level. How much glory do any of us admit to seeing in it? For example, Black Tower mentioned WW1 – now I find that anything but glorious to read about. Same with WW2.

[Black Tower mentioned WW1 – now I find that anything but glorious to read about. Same with WW2.]

Sure, but the guys who recruited millions of men to go die in trenches did so using the exact same sort of language and imagery that Napoleon and his contemporaries did. It was very much a call to "glory" in 1914.

And just like the Napoleonic Wars, the bloom was off that rose in relatively short order, and all the major combatants had to rely on forcible conscription, instead, backed up with censorship, suspension of civil liberties, and all the trappings of a police state.

Everything's glorious 200 years later

There is no such thing as a glorious war, unless you are one of the fop nobility and you are winning.

What was it Wellington said? 'The only thing worse than a battle won is a battle lost?' And that was the last 'glorious' victory of that war.

I think that a Napoleonic soldier had the same experiance as a German in WW2 when freezing to death.in Russia

Both armies were exporting an ideology

When their countries were invaded the troops thought they were fighting for hearth and home

I wonder how much time the soldier spent fighting in modern or the Napoleonic age?

It was the apogee of ridiculously pretty uniforms and made for some very stirring paintings which look pretty nice over the mantle away from the smoke and blood and screaming.

Of course they were…..if you look too hard and philosophise too much there is no way you can be a wargamer of any period. War at any time is terrible and the human tragedy is immense all of which I am aware of. The parodox is that it is the "glory" of war that attracts us to wargames. As an armchair general I a safe at my club premises while my little soldiers are pushed around in a mock simulation of something I choose to view through rose coloured glasses. Its a disconnect I have to make.

cheers
FM

I would imagine that Napoleon quickly figured out that he could make men glad to lose their lives for him and in the name of glory or for the chance to win a piece of metal and ribbon. He certainly took advantage of it.

Until relatively recently the average citizen of Europe, and America for that matter, was largely poor. The industrial revolution has made us all quite comfortable. But in an age where poverty and starvation were the norm the idea of glory, a regular meal, and the promise of a shilling in yer pack was tremendously appealing. Glory has lost its currency in a world where daily life and death struggles hit their low point when we're delayed at the drive-thru …

I'm pretty sure that the average peasant was well aware that armies never managed to feed or pay their soldiers that often. After all, most peasants had seen the army come through once or twice, and had seen those ragged scoundrels looting and pillaging and raping. (Perhaps the prospect of doing *that* instead of having it done to you, might have been the REAL recruiting enticement.)

Once again, if the military life was so glorious, men wouldn't have had to be conscripted with such force, and punished so drastically for desertion.

But if you're right, then we could just as easily use your argument to say that nowadays, with full bellies and air conditioners and a million toys, people need lots and lots of Glory to get excited about wars: constant chattering cable TV talking heads promising Shock-N-Awe, lots of waving flags and macho scenes on aircraft carriers, and country music stars, etc.

Whereas 200 years ago… a meal in your gut and a suit of clothes on your back wasn't a glorious motivator; it was simple survival.

unless you are one of the fop nobility and you are winning.

Glory sounds a whole lot better when you're a REMF. If you can be a REMF than doesn't have to get within earshot, even better.

I suspect the average French conscript or English long service regular cared not one whit about glory after their first night sleeping in the mud when they were too tired to wash off someone elses blood.

Glory tends to be a term most often applied to an era where a certain romanticism was attached to service. Throughout time the common soldier aspired to bettering himself through service. Square meal, nice uniform, plunder, pay, service to king or religion, etc. have all served to sanitize the memory of war. Even as late as the outbreak of WWI so-called intellectuals in Europe welcomed the war because it had been too long since the last one! Such a calloused view can only be rationalized by a quest for national and/or individual glory.

My opinion, by the end of the 19th century all glory in war was gone, though heroes come around.

The wars were glorious. Men covered themselves in glory. Courage, discipline, and comradery were still more important than technology. The uniforms were brilliant.Napoleonic soldiers were at once the rock stars and the heroes of their age.

This was an age when a marshal could lead wave after wave of cavalry charges, when Kings and Emperors put their lives at risk on the battlefield, and it was a time when a stirring speech or a dramatic gesture could be enough to tip the balance.

It was a time when an individual, with intelligence, fortune, and courage, could rise to great fame. It was a time when acting and appearing heroic might be enough.

Not that many kings put themselves at risk!
And given that you "Comrades " were probably criminals who opted for the army instead of the noose I think many of the rank and file live in fear.

Sergeants like Hakeswell in Sharpe were not pure fiction!

I was reading recently that perhaps one reason for the idea of glory being so common back then was the fact that soldiers spent a lot less time actually under fire. In his book 'Die Hard', Haythornthwaite shows that the most decorated veteran soldier of the victorian era British army spent less than 72 hours under fire during his entire multiple decade spanning career. Come WWI, soldiers would spend that amount of time under fire during their first week at the front!
My guess is it would be much easier to think of war as glorious if it's short and sharp. Prolong it into months or years under artillery bombardments, constant threat of attack, and the concept of glory seems very foolish indeed.

I tend to agree with ansbachdragoner. Troops had a much better chance of dying of some disease or infection then the chance of dying in combat at the time.

Add to that the class difference and I'm sure that the troops serving in the ranks never used the word 'glory' to describe their time under fire. Perhaps if 'glory' got you a promotion, property, cash gift, etc., then one might want such 'glory'.

Note the reaction to troops in Wellington's army when they stormed a city in Spain. Rape, looting and murder on a grand scale that went on for days. That does not sound like the troops though that what they'd done was for glory.

Some officers who had to connections to benefit from reported 'glory' may have sought out such, but only folks who sat at home reading Scott thought of 'glory'. Few folks who experienced combat and the death and dying of other human beings, friends or enemies, would consider it glorious.

Dan

Guys,

With respect not many of you are addressing the target I was aiming at, which was ourselves. Whilst it is an equally worthy debate as to whether soldiers of any period found war glorious, FM and malcolm are on the right track. Recent thread titles here have included 'glorious defeats' which itself suggests that glory is still an active feeling amongst gamers and those who study military history.

I'm surprised that anyone that enjoys wargaming the Napoleonic period isn't a romantic by nature. It is exciting, stirring stuff and the glory extends beyond the mechanism of war to the famous soldiers and their characters.

That doesn't mean we need to be blind to the ugly facts of the horrors of war and, to more or less degree, we want our games to be more about mechanism than romanticism. The mini-glory that we get from our games comes from the dice rolls and desperate long shots and vast spectacles of mega-games. All of these things derive from the mechanics and we imbue the events with glory.

Having family members in the military service getting shot at in Iraq and soon (again) in Afghanistan, has sort of taken all of the glory out of the balloon for me. It has changed how I view wargaming. That is for certain.

[ the target I was aiming at, which was ourselves.]

I think what most of us are trying to say, is that – knowing what we know about the real horror and misery of those wars, and the real ugliness beneath the glitter of the parade-ground uniforms and fancy 19th-century romantic slogans – it's hard to suspend disbelief and think of them as "glorious." Fascinating, sure, but not glorious.

When I was a kid I thought Napoleon was really cool. In fact, I thought lots of flashy military leaders were really cool. Then I grew up.

I can still lose myself in the fun of a wargame, and indulge in the role-playing aspect of it, usually no matter what the topic or period.

Wars that you did not have to fight in or even where a person was a veteran were glorious in recollection.

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

"I'm surprised that anyone that enjoys wargaming the Napoleonic period isn't a romantic by nature."

MM, I'm surprised as well, but I'm beginning to suspect that a very large number of the people posting on these boards either don't wargame at all, or have an unhealthy dose of closet-angst about it.

War and suffering and killing are not glorious. Those are the tangible and all too concrete results of the conflicts during the period – but glory is not a tangible, it is an abstract. Glory lies in the noble sentiments and actions of those caught up in the wars, in the yearning and striving to live up to courageous ideals, in the sweeping advance and stalwart defense of audacious and stalwart foes, in the grand march of armies and the redrawing of maps through force of arms and character. In that most basic sense, the Napoleonic Wars were the last of the great imperial wars, and were glorious in a way that has passed from the earth. That glory had nothing to do with rationality or goodness or modern conceits and justifications – it existed in defiance of the very wars that spawned it. The only sense of that spirit that remains to us is in history and memory, and if our games with toy soldiers serve as a paltry means to partake in that memory, then we should do it for the sake of the glory and not the suffering.

You know, I think just decided to switch to 28mm figures while I was typing that! ;)

Having friends in the Falkland did it for me. One was on the Galahad, and a colleague I sailed with subsequently was a landing craft driver at Bluff Cove.
The Iran/Iraq Gulf War confirmed it, when I was Second Mate on the unarmed targets, repeatedly, in what was interestingly called "The Tanker War".

Glory is a defense mechanism against PTSD just as fatalism is a defense against crippling cowardice and honour a defense against cold utilitariansim.

While misguided glory-seeking can have horrible consequences, it might be that the trappings of glory went a long way toward making the horrors of war something that the human mind could grapple with. To remove glory does not significantly remove war from the world but it leaves us with no way to moderate the evil that men do to one another.

Catenwolde, I do not wargame for the 'Glory ' of an era. I do research to learn about the miltary aspect. To honor the past soldiers by 'preserving their memory in these games is a common approach by many wargamers expressed or not.

I remember back in the 1970s being depressed when I played World War One games (1914 and especially Verdan) when the casualties grew and grew without any gains. Still even in miniatures, one of my least favorite eras is WW1 ground warfare.

Can I recommend that the chip-on-both-shoulders social(ist) gripers read some of the diaries and memoirs penned by the British officers who served in the Peninsula – especially those who started out as penniless volunteers? Or maybe the writings of some of the "men of letters" who served in the post-1808 Prussian army?

Not only would it disabuse them of the idea "everything was all right provided you were an officer", they might also gain an insight into why men put honour and duty before their own lives (and still do). And their reward, or the other side of that coin if you like, was……….glory.
The idea that you had been part of something bigger that would be writ large in the pages of history is something no politician or bureaucrat could take away from you – unlike your home, your job or your pension.

One of the things that made the Great War such a cultural shock was that there was no longer any ability for the soldiers to see the war in terms of glory. Technology had made courage and bravado no longer enough (the Napoleonic wars had been pushing close to this with the artillery induced carnage of Aspern-Essling and Borodino).

The veterans of the Napoleonic Wars were proud of the glory that they had earned.

Culturally, a veteran now is given thanks and are labelled a hero by virtue of participating. In the Napoleonic age, heroism was something that had wide variance and though you would gain some glory just for serving with famous soldiers or regiments, or being on certain battlefields, you could also earn greater levels of glory through personal actions and qualities of character.

I'm certain that it is still the case among soldiers that they measure the merits of their individual comrades by marks that are glory in all but name.

"I do not wargame for the 'Glory ' of an era. I do research to learn about the miltary aspect. To honor the past soldiers by 'preserving their memory in these games is a common approach by many wargamers expressed or not."

Rudy, I fear then that you would not fit in well at my wargaming group, which ironically is composed primarily of RAF service personnel and is the very place that our glorious dead (I've recently heard that term and have used it without quote marks, even though I'm genuinely not sure of the sentiment myself, considering the circumstances), for we wargame for fun and love of the subject.

That isn't to say that I don't honour my country's soldiers of the past. However I don't personally believe playing with toy soldiers and accumulating very many tabletop deaths is the place to do it.

Malcolm I think is right about modern glory. Today, for example, we (Britain) have lost another man in Afghainstan, a guy named Sgt. Olaf Schmid who worked in bomb disposal. he was killed deactivating his 65th IED the day before he was due to return home.

He has been described by a senior officer in the media as 'a legendary figure' and the 'best of the best of the best'. I think perhaps this is the closest you can get to modern glory.

[Can I recommend that the chip-on-both-shoulders social(ist) gripers read some of the diaries and memoirs penned by the British officers who served in the Peninsula – especially those who started out as penniless volunteers? Or maybe the writings of some of the "men of letters" who served in the post-1808 Prussian army? … it disabuse them of the idea "everything was all right provided you were an officer"]

…yet you only mention the memoirs of officers and "men of letters" (also officers).

I've read lots of English, French, and German memoirs in the original. Both officers and enlisted men. In fact, I've probably read hundreds of them in German. And certainly, these old men "remember with advantages" as Shakespeare said. In retrospect, safely removed from events, lots of things can look glorious, or at least adventurous. Particularly if you now have an axe to grind against those people whom you imagine are not appreciating you enough!

I was thinking just today, in fact, about Goethe in old age, writing about how great Napoleon had been, and what a glorious era it had all been. A very different perspective from the Goethe in middle-age watching 50,000 French troops lay waste to his beloved city of Weimar, killing at random, raping women, looting the place bare, breaking open the collection boxes of churches to get the last coins out.

It's easy to get nostalgic when the "Glory" isn't making its way through your door, looking for your daughter.

Old bear, You cannot look at the social aspects such as treatment of spceific categories (enter your preference) of history when designing wargames and mechanics for rules. You need to concentrate on tactics and weapon's effectiveness of the era.

A few board games have been able to include a multitude of views of history but they tend to be cumbersome and even unplayable. Remember the SPI monster game 'Middle Ages'.

If you are going to get wrapped up in the social and cultural aspects of any era, (such as they were the a bad army since they pillaged more than the other side did) then maybe those guys should not be wargaming.

I remember when I and several other posters on here all served at Fort Hood in the army together 9almost all officers at that). We played a lot of Napoleonics and Ancients and a little WW2.
But when it came to Modern armor, NOBODY would play it. As one officer said "Playing modern armor was too much like work."

Yes but those "High Flyers" were the exceptions

I am sure most admire the many qualities that the troops of that era displayed and I am sure that many a story was told to children and grandchildren

Perhaps wargamere are cynical or just well read.
We both know the patriotic war posters and also the plight of the forgotten broken men that society turns a blind eye to in peace

Were you poppy with pride

If you are going to get wrapped up in the social and cultural aspects of any era, (such as they were the a bad army since they pillaged more than the other side did) then maybe those guys should not be wargaming.

Perhaps we should take a leaf from RPGs
Lawful good British anyone!

I worry a lot that wargaming trivialises war. I know I feel distaste about having fun recreating 20th century conflicts, when so many people have grandfathers who served and fell.

Part of the reason I like the Napoleonic period is that for all its horribleness, it is old history. The screams are stilled, the echo of cannon-fire faded. I can learn the truth about what happened, but not feel too guilty if I slip into a romanticised, Boy's-own, sweep-the-nastiness-under-the-carpet mentality, or see casualties as numbers instead of someone's relative.

Glory and Glamour are not the same thing.

These wars are glamorous.

What glory there was, however, came in small moments – guard cavalry charging guard cavalry on the Pratzen, for example.

But mostly, it was just trying not to be killed in a variety of coloured uniforms, and the usual madness of war.

The elite formations would find a lot more of it than most – becasue they sought out such moments, memoir writers wanting to tell a story would find it where they could, that being the nature of a story teller.

And they were a highly glamorous period in military history.

As a whole, they are not glorious – no war is, but they certainly had their moments for some.

Perhaps, instead of 'glory' we could substitute the word 'pageantry'?

Dan

Old Bear
'What with all the arguing about Napoleon recently ( well, always actually) the word 'glory' has been used quite a bit. In its way this has surprised me as these days war is, it seems to me, anything but glorious'.

To be honest, I've never, ever read a quote from someone who's just won a proper battle, saying it was 'glorious'. One famous quote is from Wellington who said (more or less), while surveying the dead, 'I hope to God we never have to win a battle like that again.'

No, the word 'glorious' is usually written up after the battle by the press. Occaisionally it's used during the battle, to describe the magnificent uniforms and the timely and elegant charge of some cavalry regiment. Or perhaps of a typical Bonapartist parade before the battle, when he lines up his men and the bands play.

Cacadores,

I'm trying to think of such a quote myself, and the first one that springs to mind is, naturally, from the man himself: "Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." Where he was when he said it I don't rightly know. It perhaps sums up his motivation, however. He also said: "Better not to have been born than to live without glory."

But then of course he also said: "If you had seen one day of war, you would pray to God that you would never see another." That makes me think that although there was a man determined not to vanish into the obscurity of history, it would seem that he liked the carnage no more than Wellington.

He also said:
"What are a million lives to a man like me?",
and, on the battlefield of Eylau after looking at the carnage:
"One night in Paris will make up for all this."

For me, they were a glorious epoch and there is no amount of argument that will persuade me otherwise.

Hrmph!

I think everybody is capable of 'tough talk' on occasion. I tend to think that the quote I used may have been perhaps at a more reasoned moment when he wasn't playing politics so much. Of course I may be wholly wrong.

I'm with Wellington on this one

"Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won."

Not much hint of glory there.